PHOTO: screen capture of the Oregon State University Pride Center's announcement of their "Happy (almost) Anniversary to us!" facebook.com posted Oct. 3, 2014 and their "10th Anniversary Brunch: The Pride Center Family Reunion," Saturday, October 11 at 12:00pm in PDT at Oregon State University Pride Center in Corvallis," Oregon State University Pride Center facebook.com accessed Oct. 4, 2014, which so far 35 people say they will attend. UPDATE: 10/14/14 - Check out these posts "Screening of the original OSU Queer Resource Center documentary at our 10th Anniversary Brunch," Oregon State University Pride Center Facebook page, posted Oct. 11, 2014 and "Some photos from last Saturday's 10th Anniversary Brunch! ," Oregon State University Pride Center Facebook page, posted Oct. 13, 2014, accessed Oct. 14, 2014
UPDATE: 10/14/2014 - although the student newspaper did not print my following letter to the editor, and my health prevented me from attending the event, I was told that the 10th anniversary drew a good crowd, including OSU President Ed Ray, Vice Provost Sabah Randhawa, Director of equity and inclusion Angelo Gomez, and Associate Dean of Science Julie Greenwood.
I wrote the following letter to the editor of the OSU student newspaper about the 10th anniversary of the OSU Pride Center (UPDATE: 10/14/14 - although the student newspaper didn't publish it, they did run some good pieces before the Pride Center's celebration, including Editorial Board, "Some fights for rights take too long," Barometer, Oct. 7, 2014, p. 7 and Chris Correll, "Pride Center serves students," Barometer, Oct. 7, 2014, p. 1):
Ten years ago this month, on "National Coming Out Day" Oct. 11, 2004, Oregon State University President Ed Ray cut the ribbon to officially open the OSU Pride Center.
President Ray's support is significant, given that only 100 years ago a gay OSU Beaver football player was arrested under an Oregon law against homosexual behavior.
Ray also inspired me to endow the multi-million dollar OSU Foundation Magnus Hirschfeld Fund for research on humans or animals with a minority sexual orientation or gender identity, e.g. the gay sheep and fruit fly research done at OSU.
Pioneering research on "homophiles" was first started by the former OSU Professor W. Dorr Legg, who served as a Christian minister for soldiers at the nearby military Camp Adair during World War II before moving on to start the present-day gay Log Cabin Republicans.
For more, read the accessible PDF copy of my history of OSU, which is downloadable from the OSU Libraries' Scholars Archives and also linked to from the OSU Pride Center's history page.
Thomas Kraemer, OSU Class of 1977 and 1978, Founder, OSU Foundation Magnus Hirschfeld Fund
(Quoted from Thomas Kraemer, Barometer Letter to editor, unpublished, submitted Oct. 4, 2014))
See the following links:
- OSU Pride Center History page accessed Oct. 4, 2014 includes a link to my OSU history: Thomas Kraemer, "Corvallis, Oregon State University gay activism 1969-2004," PDF stored in the OSU Libraries' Scholars Archives.
- Thomas Kraemer, "Corvallis, Oregon State University gay activism 1964-2002," printed to PDF from OutHistory.org in 2010 is permanently stored by the OSU Scholars Archives@OSU
- OSU gay history at OutHistory.org site (1/16/12) is the original site for which I wrote and donated this history, but a new Web design made it hard to access with low vision blindness
- "National Coming Out Day is Oct. 11, 2014 this year," Human Rights Campaign hrc.org - "the 26th anniversary of National Coming Out Day"
- HRC Staff, "HIV Activist Sean Strub Discusses Memoir "Body Counts" At HRC Headquarters," posted Jan 28, 2014 - "His memoir recounts his involvement in the establishment of the Human Rights Campaign Fund in 1980, alongside the campaign's first Executive Director, Steve Endean." I first met Steve Endean as an activist at the University of Minnesota before he started national gay lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C.
- W. Dorr Legg OSU archives records 1935-1942 (7/31/10)
- FBI files on gay OSU professor 1956 (7/7/10)
- OSU W. Dorr Legg homosexual marriage 1953 vs. CA Prop 8 2010 (8/22/10)
- Gay Oregon Professor 1935 (9/16/06)
- OSU professor recognized equality hypocrisy decades ago (6/5/12)
